Coffee shop, food counters coming this spring to Black Business Hub on South Side

The vendors will share a commercial kitchen tucked behind their glass storefronts with other local businesses serving food in the Hub or at its pop-up events.

Another, larger commercial kitchen on the building’s lower level that has already been completed is intended to support a wider range of businesses, including food trucks and caterers.

The Urban League of Greater Madison’s four-story Black Business Hub, which held its grand opening in August, was created at 2352 S. Park St. to support and promote businesses owned by people of color.

Its lower-level kitchen cost just under $1.1 million, said Ed Lee, the Urban League’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. The smaller kitchen on the first floor is expected to cost about $780,000, he said.

The city is poised to lend up to $300,000 to the Urban League to fund the installation of the first-floor kitchen.

The Urban League anticipates that at least 20 food entrepreneurs will use the first-floor kitchen space per year and estimates that four in five will be Black or people of color, earn less than 80% of the county median income or both, Lee said.

The organization predicts that the lower-level kitchen will be able to accommodate 40 to 50 vendors over the same period. The kitchen has enough storage space for about 25 vendors to share it, with two to three vendors able to work there at any given time, said Jeffery Norwood, the Hub’s commercial kitchen manager.

With the Division of Motor Vehicles office recently moving to the same block of South Park Street and the city planning to add hundreds of units of new housing a block away at the corner of South Park Street and West Badger Road, “it’s getting busier and busier,” Lee said. The Urban League’s goal, he said, is to bring “more diverse options, healthy options, to this part of town.”

Coffee shop Rasta Barista is set to open first, followed later this spring by the Taylor Nicole Wine & Cupcake Lounge and the three food counters.

In an unfinished space also connected to the atrium, the Urban League is planning to open a full-service restaurant with a bar and seating for roughly 100 people, potentially serving Afro-Caribbean or soul food, Lee said.

Some vendors at the Hub’s food counters will likely cycle in and out over time, Lee said, and an even wider variety of businesses will be represented at pop-up events.

Many of the businesses that have participated in past pop-up markets have approached the Urban League about renting kitchen space, Lee said.

“There definitely is a lot of interest and need for shared kitchen spaces in the city,” Lee said.

There’s still room available, he said. “If folks need kitchen space, if they have an interest in being part of the Hub, they should definitely reach out.”